Long Arm Quilting – Basics for Every Quilter

March 3, 2016 by admin

When you are finally done with your top quilt, you might now be looking for a way to join the pieces of your quilt as a finishing touch. It could be time-consuming to baste all your blocks and piece them together by hand. That could be the reason why quilters turn to long arm quilting.

What is it?

Long arm quilting is the process of sewing together the quilt top, batting and backing to come up with a finished quilt. It uses an industrial-length sewing machine and a complete long-arming system.

It includes the sewing head, the long-arming frame, a table with a plastic layer where the pantograph is placed and rollers for the batting and fabric.

How do they do it?

There are two ways to quilt using the longarm method – by using a pantograph and by freehand. A pantograph is a pattern or design that is traced along the quilt top. It can placed row by row or columns by columns to create a seamless design.

Custom quilting is done freehand and requires more time and energy to complete. However it is best used by quilters who want to use different quilting designs for each block.

Long arm quilting has recently gained popularity because of the ease and convenience that the machines offer to avid quilters. Most quilters who accomplish quilting by hand quickly realizes that it is cheaper and faster to look for a local longarm quilter for final quilting. However, freehand quilting is still in practice.